Genius may anticipate the season of maturity; but in the education of a people, as in that of an individual, memory must be exercised, before the powers of reason and fancy can be expanded: nor may the artist hope to equal or surpass, till he has learned to imitate, the works of his predecessors.
The active, insatiate principle of self-love can alone supply the arts of life and the wages of industry; and as soon as civil government and exclusive property have been introduced, they become necessary to the existence of the human race.
Passion, interest, or caprice, suggested daily motives for the dissolution of marriage; a word, a sign, a message, a letter, the mandate of a freedman, declared the separation; the most tender of human connections was degraded to a transient society of profit or pleasure.
A nation ignorant of the equal benefits of liberty and law, must be awed by the flashes of arbitrary power: the cruelty of a despot will assume the character of justice; his profusion, of liberality; his obstinacy, of firmness.
The progress of despotism tends to disappoint its own purpose.
The land was then covered with morasses and forests, which spread to a boundless extent, whenever man has ceased to exercise his dominion over the earth.
Europe is secure from any future irruptions of Barbarians; since, before they can conquer, they must cease to be barbarous.
The Roman government appeared every day less formidable to its enemies, more odious and oppressive to its subjects.
But the desire of obtaining the advantages, and of escaping the burdens, of political society, is a perpetual and inexhaustible source of discord.
The Gauls were endowed with all the advantages of art and nature; but as they wanted courage to defend them, they were justly condemned to obey, and even to flatter, the victorious Barbarians, by whose clemency they held their precarious fortunes and their lives.
The love of freedom, so often invigorated and disgraced by private ambition, was reduced, among the licentious Franks, to the contempt of order, and the desire of impunity.
Flattery is a foolish suicide; she destroys herself with her own hands.
The sentiment of fear is nearly allied to that of hatred.
Whenever the spirit of fanaticism, at once so credulous and so crafty, has insinuated itself into a noble mind, it insensibly corrodes the vital principles of virtue and veracity.
Of human life, the most glorious or humble prospects are alike and soon bounded by the sepulchre.
The separation of the Arabs from the rest of mankind has accustomed them to confound the ideas of stranger and enemy.
The patient and active virtues of a soldier are insensibly nursed in the habits and discipline of a pastoral life.
Ignorant of the arts of luxury, the primitive Romans had improved the science of government and war.
According to the law of custom, and perhaps of reason, foreign travel completes the education of an English gentleman.
A false modesty is the meanest species of pride.